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Sadly, I feel it would be viewed at about the same levelof interest as rhythmic gymnastics with their twirly ribbons.

At least the twirly ribbon has a pretty girl on one end, a kite with a fat guy on the end couldn't even match that

People have been suggesting it for 20 years, the bottom line is the Olympics won't accept any more subjectively judged sports. In fact over here people tried and couldn't even get kiting recognized as a sport (but darts is a sport )

Ah, is it that time again? Time to rehash the "why is kiting not an Olympic sport!" topic? Oh boy.

Rather than rehash all the old arguments, I think I'll just paraphrase some things I saw on a surfing forum recently re. why surfing isn't in the Olympics:

"It's too conditions dependent....it's judged subjectively...it's a participant's sport more than a spectator sport (lots of people surf, relatively few go out of their way to watch contests)".

All of those apply to kiting as well. A major difference is that surfing has millions of participants and relatively large sponsorship potential, and is undeniably "athletic". Kiting by comparison is relatively unknown and barely a blip on the sponsorship radar, and most participants aren't exactly athletes.

ive been flying since the 80s , i starting to learn a few tricks , my boys are showing me , but honestly to me fast paced trick flying looks like an accident not really planned so whats it look like to joe public , does anybody even team fly anymore , just my 2 cents , ray

Most definitely yes! Am part of a dual-line pair and team. Click here if you want to know more about our pair- and team-flying. Several more dual-line pairs and teams active in the UK, as are several quad-line teams. Around the world, I know of about 60 pairs/teams, but no doubt I missed quite a few.

I will merely reiterate; if kiting as we know it is to be represented at a multi-sports event it will not be the Olympics but it might be at the World Air Games or the World Games. No, it won't be the swutting X Games, dude.

However the road to this is paved not with good intentions and inquisitive forum posts but with harder work than we've seen to date and considerably higher levels of participation.

... to me fast paced trick flying looks like an accident not really planned so whats it look like to joe public...

Agreed! In Bintulu last year, Lam was doing a routine for the crowd, but they could only watch from side on. From that angle, they couldn't work out what the hell was going on and the crowd thinned out by half. From where Lam was standing I'm sure it looked excellent

If you haven't had a look at this then do so to expand your view of what constitutes an "athlete". Do be careful not to overlook the little yellow square on the very far right of the chart. No.... further right. Keep going. There you are.

I always considered stunt kite flying alot like golf. Does not take that much physical effort, its a lot harder than it looks and requires ALOT of practice and good equipment to perform well. There are a few things that kill this sport: 1- Poor advertising or sponsorship. 2- People starting out on $50 stunt kites with line used to wrap packages and simply giving up after one or two trips into their local wooded park. 3- Lack of tutors or experts to make people progress properly. 4- Lack of good wind constantly other than living at/or near a beach. 5- High expense for a suite of custom made kites to make life easier in the trick transition period. 6- AKA and its lack of TRICKS PARTY sponsorship but the AKA events did show me what the right tools were to put in my bag. Its simply a sport reserved for a select few with some spare cash lying around and probably living in the East/West coast states for the U.S. anyway with alot of determination to be a good pilot. God bless the die hard inlanders flying at deserted airports I consider myself lucky each time I hit the beach with a Lam kite. Very lucky! Its been a long hard road ... but I like stunt kiting. ALOT.

If you haven't had a look at this then do so to expand your view of what constitutes an "athlete". Do be careful not to overlook the little yellow square on the very far right of the chart. No.... further right. Keep going. There you are.

Athletes come in all sizes and shapes, but height/bodyweight ratio has little to do with it. An interesting chart, but about as useful when it comes to athletes as the ridiculous BMI (body mass index) charts that US insurance companies use to compute risk.

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